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Wednesday, November 21, 2001

To Any iCarly Fan Who Was Upset By "iStart A Fan War"

After each new iCarly episode airs, I get a short report (via email) telling me about web traffic, fan comments, etc.

This morning, my email said this:

When I saw that negative comments were a bit higher than usual, I emailed back and asked what the negative comments were saying. Here's the email I got back:

After reading that, I felt I should respond to the fans who weren't happy. I'd like to respond to the 3 issues:

The On-Air Promos

If you felt you were mislead by the promos for iStart A Fan War, you're right – I totally agree with you. But as I've told you guys before, I have no control over the promos. I see them on TV just like you see them on TV.

I freakin' love Nickelodeon. Everyone there is really nice, smart, supportive, and they're great to me. But I don't always agree with everything they do.

The team who makes the promos is extremely talented – they do awesome work. But sometimes, I think the promos reveal too much about the episodes. I don't like it when the promos reveal the whole basic plot, or when they show too many of the big, major moments. When that happens with a promo, I feel like it becomes a spoiler.

When I saw the first promo for iStart A Fan War, I thought it was good. But I also felt it was misleading, because it was giving fans the impression that the whole "Seddie vs. Creddie" thing would be resolved in some way. I knew that the episode didn't do that, so the promo concerned me. I felt like it was leading the fans to believe something was going to happen that really wasn't.

Since I now know that some of you did feel mislead by the promos, I will talk to my bosses at the network and let them know. They care about the fans a lot, so I'm sure they'll appreciate the feedback.

"Making Fun" of Fans

If you're an enthusiastic iCarly fan, and you felt that iStart A Fan War was making fun of you (in a mean way), please don't feel that way! The writers and I love the iCarly super-fans!

Sure, the episode was a parody of some iCarly fans, but only a very specific type – the type of fans who fight bitterly and are mean to each other – the ones who take the whole Creddie vs. Seddie thing too far, and actually get verbally abusive with others who don't agree with them.

Those are the fans we were parodying – the mean "fighty" ones. But they only make up like 0.0000000001% of iCarly fans. And honestly, we don't dislike those fans. We just think they'd be a lot happier if they'd calm down a little bit. :)

Do you act like the psycho fans you saw in the episode? Probably not. More than likely, you're just a normal person who feels passionate about iCarly. If you are, then you're not the kind of fan we were parodying.

But if you're the type who would actually get into a physical confrontation with someone over Creddie vs. Seddie (or write nasty comments online), then yeah, we were making fun of that kind of behavior. But even so, we didn't mean it in a mean-spirited way.

On Saturday Night Live, they're always making fun of the President of the United States, other politicians, and celebrities… but that doesn't mean that the SNL producers, writers, or actors are trying to hurt those people's feelings. SNL is a comedy, so sometimes they parody people, but it's all meant in good fun. Parody is an exaggeration of behavior.

I hope this explains things to any fans who felt the episode was mocking them. Unless you're a crazy, extreme fan who gets in fights with other fans and hates anyone who disagrees with you, we weren't mocking you. If you just love iCarly (for any reason), WE LOVE YOU.

Still, if you felt offended, then I'll take the blame, and I'm sorry. My goal always is to make you laugh, smile, and have a fun time – not make you feel angry or hurt.

Deleting Comments from my Blog

There are a group of administrators (called "admins") who help run my DanWarp blog. I do write my own stuff for DanWarp.com and I supply most of the content (text, pics, videos, etc.) – but the admins moderate the comments.

I personally never delete comments because they're critical.

You know how the name DanWarp appears at the end of every episode of the shows I make? Well, since it's on television, and since my blog has the name DanWarp, there are rules I have to follow. I had to agree to let my blog be supervised.

The people in charge know that lots of KIDS visit my site to see videos, pics, and read the stuff I write. They didn't even want me to allow comments at all, because kids read them, and it's a lot of work for them to make sure that nothing innappropriate is posted.

Basically, the admins don't want controversy, fighting, or negativity on a site that lots of kids go to. They want the site to be nice, clean, and fun (just like they do with Nick.com, iCarly.com, and The Slap.com).

That's why they delete comments they feel could lead fans to argue and fight. They don't want the comment boards to go in that direction.

Of course, every person has the right to be negative, argue, or even be mean. Anyone who wants to do that can easily create their own blog (for free) and say whatever they want. Every person has the right to control his own blog however he wishes.

I don't know how the admins choose what comments to delete. I think they use a "bot" to help them filter comments. There might be certain negative buzz words that automatically flag comments. But I also think they have a team of readers who go through the comments and delete the ones they feel could start trouble.

If it's any consolation, please notice that I never say anything mean on my blog. I never criticize fans or say anything unkind to them – even the ones who say mean things to me (which, thankfully, are very few).

And Now Some Cool News!!!

For those of you who were disappointed in iStart A Fan War… I think the vast majority of you will be very happy in the next few months. I'd rather not say more than that because I don't want to spoil anything. But something HUGE will be happening on iCarly in the next few months, and I think it will make a lot of fans extremely happy – especially those who felt they were mislead by the promos for iStart A Fan War.

In Closing...

Hey, I'm the first to admit I'm not perfect. Sometimes I'll watch one of my own shows and think, "Wow, that was great" – but sometimes I watch them and think, "Oh man, I should have made that so much funnier."

But please know this: I always try my best for you guys. You might not always love what I write and produce, but you can always be sure I gave it my best.

The writers agree with what Carly, Sam, and Freddie said in the episode this weekend: "We love all fans of iCarly. Totally. The average fans... the super-fans... the psycho fans... even the super-pyscho fans."